9.23.2009

Is the plot to "The Terminator" inevitable?

In case you didn't know, there is a real company out there named Cyberdyne. The founder, Yoshiyuki Sankai, is manufacturing the HAL 5 hybrid-assist exoskeleton. The HAL 5 is supposed to augment human strength up to ten times, which could mean it only augments strength 1.1 times, since that is within the limit of ten, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. HAL stands for Hybrid-Assisted Limb, though they probably could have come up with a better acronym that would distance themselves from HAL 9000, and HAL, the NYSE ticker symbol for Halliburton, and Hal, the dad from "Malcolm in the Middle" that bastard...

Sure it starts with a simple hybrid-assist exoskeleton, then before you know it you've got full body exoskeletons, then they start making them out of liquid metal and defying all laws of logic by going back in time to kill a woman and kid at ages where they are mildly yet sufficiently able to defend themselves just to keep it entertaining.

So the next time you see a crazy guy on the street screaming "Judgment Day is coming!" At least you can rest easy knowing it's the "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" scenario, and not all that Jesus fighting Satan crap. But now that we know the movies are real, I think we all owe it to our collective futures to storm Cyberdyne headquarters and destroy the building, including that damn robot arm and special computer chip they got! And we'll have to torture as many people as we can to find out where they're hiding it! Who's with me? No one? Fine! I'll go to Japan myself! See ya on the news!